The Dinner Party by Judy Chicago is a hallmark exhibition of American feminist art. Under the auspices of the Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art, the exhibit will be on view until Spring 2016 at the Brooklyn Museum. The Dinner Table is a tribute to 1,038 women as well as a lament to their lost stories. It is a delight to reclaim these women and their talent that has been sorely underdiscovered at Judy Chicago’s The Dinner Party.
The entrance of the exhibit is adorned with murals printed on carpet-like material. One says “And she gathered all before her,” another, “And she made for them a sign to see,” and lastly, “And then all that divided them merged and then Everywhere was Eden, Once again.” The Biblical comparisons to the Garden of Eden is a beautiful retrospective and progressive way in which to admire the achievements of these women—as if one is walking into the Garden of Eden—a most fitting analogy.
The original work was created with the help of many collaborators over the span of five years in the 1970s. With every place setting representing another pivotal female throughout history, Chicago’s work is a complex reflection of female achievement. The work celebrates the achievements of over a thousand female figures, some real, and others mythical. Many of these women did not receive the accolades they deserved until later on when rediscovered by feminist scholars.
The Dinner Party includes a set of banners, panels, and “a Heritage Floor” leading up to a large-scale banquet room. The table is shaped like a massive triangle. The lights in the room are dimmed to set the tone of a dinner. Female names are written in gold glitter across the triangular white tiles on the floor. Many of the women honored at this table each have a designated place setting, as they are the “guests of honor.”
One of these “guests” is Mary Wollstonecraft, an English writer and advocate for women’s rights in the 1700s. Her placemat is green silk with her name etched in gold. Above her name, a sewn banner holds the title of her most famous novel: A Vindication of the Rights of Woman. Her plate appears to be shaped in a leaf-like design, riddled with the colors of green, yellow, purple and blue.
Susan B. Anthony’s place setting is also sewn in similar cursive lettering with the image of an American flag above her name, signifying Anthony’s role as an American social reformer and pioneer of women’s rights. On top of her plate is a giant pink structure, similar to the a flower. Poet Emily Dickinson’s place setting is glittered with taupe and pink ruffles, indicative of her soft and poetic acumen. Other notable female place settings include artist Georgia O’Keefe, and writer Virginia Woolf—both placemats adorned with the colors of green, plum, and pink. Sacajawea’s placemat contains Indian art in the colors of orange, blue, and purple, with the ruffle of tassels at the edge. Other names include author Doris Lessing, African-American abolitionist Harriet Tubman, social activist Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and artist Frida Kahlo.
The placemats are meticulously embroidered with different shades of thread, each representing the women’s’ respective eras. Many different personas are expressed in one dinner table, creating an aura of unity. I can imagine the scene: many women, many brilliant minds, all sharing accomplishments in unity – at one dinner table. The iconic Dinner Table is the first truly monumental of American feminist art to document the contributions of women to Western civilization over the centuries.
Judy Chicago is a pioneer of feminism in the same way as the women she celebrates. Her dream in words: sustaining the legacy of these women is “to end the ongoing cycle of omission in which women were written out of the historical record.”